The Ultimate Blackjack Tour has a second season of shows ready to air, and they start this Saturday (tomorrow) September 15th, 2007. Tune in on CBS at 2 PM Eastern to check out the first of the one-hour episodes.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Ultimate Blackjack Tour (UBT), it’s a classic blackjack tournament with some extra twists thrown in to make it more exciting and strategic. After each of hands 8, 16, and 25 in the round, the player at the table with the lowest chip count is eliminated. Unlike many traditional format tournaments, these rounds are exciting from start to finish as the players are all jockeying to stay out of the fatal last place spot.

In addition, each player has a single “Secret Bet” option they can use during the round, to conceal their bet and also their playing strategy. This adds a psychological element to the game that was missing before.

Tune in on CBS this weekend to check it out. One more note… In some markets, the local CBS affiliate might preempt the show for college football instead. If you check your local TV schedule and don’t see UBT listed at 2 PM Eastern, check the late night listings instead. Usually, each CBS station will air the show sometime, but it might be moved from the nationally scheduled timeslot.

I’ll be appearing in one of the later shows this season, in something called Battle of the Superstars. My two final table finishes in UBT events in Aruba and St Kitts aren’t scheduled to air this season, but have instead been slated for season three.

Tonight’s players include me (Ken Smith), celebrity Penn Jillette, tournament regular Marlin Horseman, and relative newcomers to tournament play Helen Ho and T.J. Boros.

For satellite viewers, you can find GSN on DirecTV channel 309 and DishNetwork channel 116.

So, does it cost $400, or $500?

The problems with this latest event actually started well before the mid-June kick-off, when apparently the casino marketing department and the tournament director had a miscommunication about the entry fee for the event. Full-page ads went out to local gaming magazines like Jackpot Magazine, showing the $150,000 prize pool event with an entry fee of $400. Yet, when players called to register for the event, they found that the price had increased by $100 to $500.

On the very day of the tournament, you could walk in the front door of the Grand Casino and pick up a copy of Jackpot magazine showing a $400 entry fee, and proceed into the casino to see identical artwork displaying the revised $500 fee instead. Further confusing the matter was the fact that some preferred players were indeed charged the $400 fee, while others paid $500, or $250, or were comped into the event for free.

A Mess at Registration

All this confusion about entry fees led to a long line for registration, with payments handled at just one window of the cashier. The long slow-moving line crawled forward as each player had to work out how much their particular applicable entry fee was to be. And of course, players who were told $500 but overheard others getting lower entry fee amounts wanted to speak to a host about their situation. Couple that with the printed $400 ads, and it was another disaster.

Promo Chip Confusion

Players who arrived on Thursday for the registration process were to receive a $100 promo chip for showing up a day early. These were handed out as four $25 table play coupons which, according to the fine print on them could be used for any table games bet. If the bet won, it would be paid in full and the coupon would be collected. If the bet lost, the coupon would be collected with no payoff. Simple enough, although the “use it once and lose it” provision means that the coupon is worth slightly less than half face value on even money bets like blackjack. These coupons are potentially worth more if a player chooses to use them on a bet that pays more than even money, like betting a number straight up on roulette which pays 35 to 1. However, once players headed to the tables, they learned that the coupons weren’t being honored for anything other than even money bets, despite language printed on the coupon itself that said otherwise. In my own attempt to play them at roulette, I finally had the floorperson agree with me that I was right, but after two phone calls to management, he informed me that his bosses said I still couldn’t use the coupons that way.

Players Removed

During the course of the event, two players were 86′ed from the property. I know all about this, because I was one of them. When I sat down to play in the very first round, all was well as tournament director Rob Winkler came to my table to confirm the identity of each player, including me. My round began, and we actually lost one of our six players to over-aggressive betting on hand two. Things were shaping up just fine I thought, with two players advancing from the five remaining players at the table. As the table is betting for hand four, Winkler suddenly appears at the table again, and this time he pushes my bet out of the circle and says I need to come with him. When I push my bet back in the circle and tell him I’m obviously in the middle of round, he repeats his action. I leave the table with him, and he takes me over to a waiting shift manager who informs me that I’m no longer welcome on the property.

As you might expect, I’m blindsided by this turn of events. I repeatedly ask what this is all about, but the only thing they’ll say is “We don’t like your style of play, and you’ll have to leave the property right now.” By this time, a crowd of curious friends and bystanders has formed. I’m being removed from an event that I was invited to play for free. Yes, I was comped into the event, though I chose to also pay $500 to secure an additional seat in the event for my wife. And now I’m being told that I can’t finish the event I just began.

Now, this isn’t the first time a situation like this has arisen in the state of Mississippi, and I was familiar with a similar event that occurred in the late 90s in Biloxi. I knew that a player in a similar situation had contested the casino actions with the Mississippi Gaming Commission, and had a favorable outcome. (The Mississippi Gaming Commission actually has a pretty good track record when it comes to defending casino patrons against egregious actions by the casinos. In many states, the gaming authorities are pretty much just rubber-stamp operations controlled by the casino industry. Not so in Mississippi!) In the Biloxi case, the casino had 86′ed a player during the event, only to later be informed that he must be allowed to complete the event. In other words, if you start a tournament in Mississippi, you get to finish it.

I knew this ruling would apply in my case. After all, I was already on hand four of the tournament, and furthermore, I had already defeated one player! I pointed out this situation to the casino staff who were trying to get me to leave the property, and I advised them that they should contact the Gaming Commission and I would wait for their answer right here. No, no, I’m told, you’ll have to leave right now, and if you don’t leave right now, we’ll have to contact the Tunica County Sheriff’s Department to have you forcibly removed. At least, that was the story until one of the dimwits actually thought about it, and decided that maybe, just maybe, I knew what I was talking about.

After all, I do know a thing or two about tournaments. I’ve been playing in them and writing about them for more than a dozen years. If something happens in the tournament world, it’s a pretty good bet that I’ll know all about it. I also reminded Mr. Winkler several times that I’ve promoted their events on numerous occasions, and many of the people present at this event were likely here due to my efforts. What kind of treatment is this for someone who has obviously been a benefit to their events? Just what is it about my “style of play” that is such a threat to your casino? I got no answers of course. In case you’re wondering, I played no table blackjack while at the casino. In fact, it’s probably been more than two years since I sat down at a blackjack game at the Grand in Tunica. The only game I’ve played there lately is video poker. Some threat, eh?

OK, in the two minutes since the Sheriff’s Department threat, the casino staff has now reconsidered their position and I’m told that I will be allowed to finish the tournament. But they still say I must leave the property right now, and come back for a later round when they’ll find a seat for me to begin play all over again. I leave the casino along with my wife, so we can discuss whether she should compete in the event or go request a refund of her entry fee instead.

We finally decide that she will compete, but by the time all the details are resolved, her assigned round has already begun. So now she too is to be reassigned in a later round. When the tournament staff does eventually reassign our seats, we’re now to be seated at the same table competing directly against each other. No coincidence there I’m sure. When our round finally gets going, there’s quite a crowd of supporters around the table, and I’ve been told by friend after friend that winning this event would be the sweetest revenge. Of course it would have been, but I unfortunately didn’t get out of round one. My wife did advance, and she ended up making it to the semifinals before her luck ran out. At least she collected $500 for her effort, making the tournament a break-even affair for the two of us.

The Other Player’s Treatment was Worse Yet

I mentioned that two players were removed from this event. The other victim was approached before his round began, so he didn’t have the same opportunity as I did to contest the decision. Instead, he was indeed made to leave the property immediately, including a cadre of eight security guards who showed up at his hotel room door moments after he left the casino, to make sure he left the property. As the same non-explanation I received, he was told that the casino didn’t like his “style of play”.

Perhaps the presence of my wife and young son is the reason that no security personnel ever showed up at our hotel door. I guess someone realized that terrorizing a nine-year-old with no just cause sounds like a pretty expensive judgement in the making.

Rebuy Madness

Well, now that the undesirable element has been removed from the premises, surely things will go smoothly for Winkler and crew, right? Ummm, no. Next up is a disastrous rebuy policy. From the outset, it was announced that limited $250 rebuys would be available for players who failed to advance from round one. Only seventy spots would be made available, and those would need to be purchased at the registration window, between the hours of 10 PM and 11 PM only. As the appointed rebuy time approached, players began forming a line at the window. However, at twenty minutes to 10, tournament staff headed over and advised all the waiting players that they weren’t allowed to form a line. Great idea, huh? Of course, the crowd dispersed slightly, but players were still milling about in the area waiting for the starting gun to sound the mad dash to the rebuy window. That wouldn’t do either according to tournament staff, who came over and advised the players “No, no, you can’t just hang around here, you have to walk around.” So, no line, no hanging around, what a joke! Most of the self-respecting players who had endured this event to this point finally threw their hands up and said the Hell with it, we’re not hanging around for any more of these inane power trips of Winkler and company.

And the $100,000 Winner Is…

Finally on Saturday, a winner was crowned in this debacle, and what a fitting finish. It turns out that the first place winner, collecting $100,000, was actually a player who didn’t compete in the early rounds of this event. Instead, he went STRAIGHT to the final table, which he proceeded to win. What in the world could this be about?

Well, well, well. It seems that Winkler and his cohorts have had tournament issues before. A reading of the rules for this event revealed the following item:

One (1) additional participant will be added to the final table by order of the Mississippi Gaming Commission.

The additional participant was Stacy Gall, a player who had been involved in a dispute a year ago during a similar tournament. Gall took his complaint to the Gaming Commission, and after a lengthy process of appeals, the Commission finally ruled in his favor stating that he must be seated at the final table in the next comparable event. So, there he was, and he got some sweet revenge in the form of a $100K payoff. I understand that he’s also pursuing civil litigation in the matter. If you’re interested in the full details of his case and some of the tactics used by Winkler and the Grand during his hearings, I’ll be documenting that in my article in the upcoming Blackjack Insider newsletter, an email subscription newsletter published by Henry Tamburin. If you’d like to subscribe, please use my affiliate link.

As for the rest of the paying and comped entries that played this sorry excuse for a tournament, they had to split the remaining $50K of the prize pool. Small compensation for enduring this train-wreck of a tournament in my opinion.

In his letter to the LVRJ, Nersesian describes how Harrahs has chosen to prevent some players from participating in the World Series of Poker events at the Rio Casino, because those players had been barred for skillful play at other casino games. What kind of World Series is that? It would be easy for Harrahs to make this event a true World Series by permitting these players limited access to the Rio to compete in these events.

Nersesian rightly asks “What honor is there in being crowned the best in the world when a Babe Ruth of the game may be sitting at home?”

In his post “I can play” he says that he’s now allowed back, and says also “As usual everyone at Harrah’s was friendly and professional.”  Well, I guess he means other than the part where they told him not to set foot in one of their hotels again!  Whatever.

I hope he wins a bracelet somewhere along the way at this year’s WSOP.  It will make an interesting story for the press to cover if that happens.

Brodie recently hit two royals in as many days at Caesars on a 3-coin $100 Full Pay Deuces game.  Having that game installed at that level was certainly a mistake on the part of a probably-now-unemployed slot tech at Caesars, but it was a mistake that Brodie was all too happy to capitalize on.  After a rocky start, he hit paydirt, not once but twice.  Here’s a photo of one of his two $240,000 royal flushes.

You can read the whole story on Brodie’s blog “Lion Tales”. In particular, view the entry Lucky Me.

Of more interest to the blackjack community is his more recent post that describes Caesars and parent company Harrahs reaction to his good fortune. Brodie was 86′d from all Harrahs properties, which means he can’t play this year’s World Series of Poker.

Read his account of the idiotic casino response in his post Fall of the Roman Empire. The best quote: “My friends, if you can’t figure out how to make money from people who only play games with a built-in house edge, you may as well give up on the casino business and close your doors.” Well said, Richard, well said.

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Note: More than a year ago, I made changes to my server software which disrupted my ability to post blog entries through Blogger.com. So, nothing was posted here for many months. I’ve recently switched from Blogger to the much more capable WordPress blogging software. I’ll finally be posting again on an occasional basis.

While official numbers haven’t been released by GSN, it appears that of the 40 player seats in the televised event, only 20 to 30 of them have been filled by satellite qualifiers. That leaves between 10 and 20 seats to be assigned by GSN. To that end, many players have been submitting their tournament credentials to the producers, hoping for a freeroll and a shot at the $500,000 first place prize.

After submitting the initial information, many players were asked to provide a short video of themselves. In the last few days, some potential participants have gotten follow-up phone calls asking additional questions. I expect the decisions to be made by the end of this week.

That phone call is worth a cool $25,000 in expected value. Ring, ring.

Participation was pretty strong for a first-time event at this casino, with 163 players buying in to the $500 entry fee tournament. The casino paid out over $106,000 in prize money, including an extra $25,000 added to all the entry fees collected. That extra bonus money is a standard feature of these events, and that makes this series of events among the best deals in tournament blackjack. I’m looking forward to their next event, sometime in April or May. They’re shooting for 200 players, and I’m betting they’ll get there.

My own play in the tournament was pretty exciting today. I competed in the semifinal round at 9 AM this morning. The format was for one player of the six at our table to advance to the final table. I gained the chip lead with several hands to go and held on until the finish. On the very last hand there were only three of us left. I had $1927.50 and my nearest competition had only $805. He went all-in, and the only risk I had was if he drew a blackjack. I bet $125, to make sure a win by me would cover his blackjack, but I didn’t need it. When his first card dealt was a four, I was assured a seat at the final table.

At the final table, there were 7 players competing for the prize pool, with first place taking home $50,000. By the middle of the round, my friend Robert Blechman of California had taken a lead of a few hundred dollars. I lost a few hundred dollars of my starting $1000 bankroll chasing him with middle sized bets. With 12 hands remaining of the 25 to be played, I was down to only $600. After seeing Blechman’s bet on that hand, I calculated that a win of his $40 bet would take him to a total bankroll of $1187.50. If I moved all-in now, I could take a $12.50 lead if the dealer pays us both. With 12 hands left, that’s earlier than I am usually willing to risk all my chips, but I decided this might be my last chance to take the lead with one bet.

I moved all-in for $600, but never even got to play the hand. The dealer had a blackjack, and I finished in 7th place. I collected $1500 for my efforts, which is certainly a far cry from the $50,000 that Blechman eventually took home for first place. Still, I think my decisions were sound, and I’d make the same choice again. You just can’t do anything about the way the cards fall. All you can do is make the best choices along the way and hope that Lady Luck smiles when you need her.

It’s worth noting that of the 7 finalists, at least 4 of them are regular visitors to the sister site of BlackjackInfo.com. Check out BlackjackTournaments.com.

If you decide to come to Mississippi in April or May for the next Sheraton event, be sure to tell the table games manager Adolf that Ken Smith sent ya. And, be sure to introduce yourself as well. I’ll be there, hoping to do better than 7th place.

Good cards, -Ken-

In a long but very exciting week, filming finished up in late October at CBS Studios in Los Angeles. The more than $1 million in prize money was big news, but the real impact of these events will come once they hit TV. A new twist on the standard blackjack tournament format is guaranteed to spice up the game for television audiences.

The new format is called “Elimination-style blackjack” and it adds a simple but brutal twist to the game. In a 30-hand round, there are also 3 forced elimination hands on the way to the final hand. After hands 8, 16, and 25, the player at the table with the lowest bankroll remaining is immediately eliminated. That means there’s no more dozing off at the table for the first 20 hands of the round. With high-tension decisions every few hands, players have to scramble for position during the entire match. The whole format has a patent pending by the creators.

I’ve played a lot of tournament blackjack over the years, and I’ve never seen anything like this. These rounds were the toughest and most unforgiving of any I’ve ever played. I think that will translate into a real winner for TV. No word yet on when or where they will air, but this was a very elaborate production so it is sure to gain a lot of interest from the networks.

Next year we’ll see a number of developments from UBT, including satellite tournaments at both land-based and online casinos, where everyone has a shot at ending up playing for big bucks under the TV lights.

I’ve been trumpeting 2006 as a banner year for blackjack tournaments, and the UBT is one of the main reasons I believe our time has come. Move over poker, you’ve got company!

Many viewers of previous events have pointed out that only the final few hands of a round hold any excitement. The UBT has added some twists that I think eliminate that complaint. One thing is for sure… The new format is TOUGH! Every single hand you play is important, and the angles and complexity go as deep as you can handle, and then some. I was absolutely exhausted after this week of effort.

I don’t know how much of the results information is supposed to be publicly available, so I won’t disclose any outcomes here. However, the events aren’t complete yet anyway. In Vegas, we filmed seven tournaments, but no final tables. The seven finalists in each event will compete a week from now in Los Angeles on a special set built for the show. Each winner of an event will pick up $50,000, and the top finishers in each event will then compete in a tournament of champions, for another $250,000 first place prize.

The long-term vision for this series is an ongoing World Tour concept, similar to the World Poker Tour. Once the shows begin to air, and the accompanying website launches, the public will be able to enter for a chance to play big money events under the television lights.

This is just the first of three big developments in the 2006 world of tournament blackjack. GSN’s series “World Series of Blackjack” is said to be coming back in 2006, with a satellite tournament process that will allow everyone to participate. The third horse in this Tournament Trifecta is an open event similar to the Hilton’s Million Dollar Tournament. The new “$2 Million Blackjack Tournament” is rumored to be getting set for events to begin in early 2006.

For more discussion and schedules of upcoming events, check out BlackjackTournaments.com.

It’s gonna be a good year. Start working on your tournament chops, and maybe I’ll see YOU in the finals, -Ken-